Samarkand Sight Seeing pt. 1

I arrive in Samarkand after Nurtek kindly pays for my car from his late father’s place and am greeted with the daunting task of finding an inexpensive hotel. After half an hour’s search, the driver says he has to get back to work and drops me off not far from the Registan.

I ask a nearby taxi driver to find me an inexpensive place for 3,000 cym and he drives me half a kilometer and shows me an expensive place instead. After some negotiating back and forth with the manager and the driver, I end up agreeing on a price and decide to head out and see the sights.

Wandering around town, I bump into Mark and Sevianne, the French couple that crossed the border with me. With them is one of the other passengers for the Tashkent – Samarkand drive, Dilshad.

As we reach the ticket office for Timur’s mausoleum, I decide to pretend I’m a local. I tell the lady at the window that I’m from Tashkent, she disagrees and asks for my documents. I tell her we don’t live in a passport regime (Uzbekistan very much does have one). She won’t sell me the local ticket (400cym instead of 4,000cym) but says I can try my luck convincing the ticket inspectors at the main gate. They don’t doubt for a second that I’m from Tashkent and so begins the saga of being charged local prices for everywhere in Uzbekistan.

Man changing light bulb over Amir Timur’s mausoleum.

Back of Amir Timur’s mausoleum.

There’s a small mausoleum located behind Timur’s mausoleum, the price to get in for the French couple is 1000 cym, the local price for me is 0. Marc tells the ticket seller that to the Uzbeks, the French are just a cash machine. The man corrects him saying all foreigners are cash machines.